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Friday, November 4, 2011

Worth Mentioning - Huge Heaving Orbs

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

This week, Cody gets his name on the latest Full Moon Features release and Jay is swarmed by Bs: Breaking Bad and Buried.

KILLER EYE: HALLOWEEN HAUNT (2011)

I've always been a fan of Full Moon. Puppet Master, Trancers, Demonic Toys, Dollman, Subspecies, Blood Dolls, The Dead Hate the Living, Dead & Rotting, The Gingerdead Man, the list of Full Moon movies and series that I've enjoyed over the years goes on and on.

My name is in the end credits of their latest release, Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt, as a Special Executive Producer. This stems from a sale that the company's online store had in August 2008, where fans could get an Executive Producer credit on one of their movies by purchasing $120 worth of merchandise. With the purchase of eight DVDs - Tourist Trap, Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned, Evil Bong, Murdercycle (at the suggestion of Dread Central's Foywonder), Hideous!, Doll Graveyard, The Gingerdead Man and Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust - I had spent more than $120 and earned my credit, guaranteed with a certificate.

At the time, the credit was supposed to be on Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver. But it took three years for GM3 to come out, during which a lot of changes happened at the company and some files must have been misplaced, because when I bought the new Gingerdead sequel in September I was disappointed to find that my credit had not made it onto the movie after all. A fellow message board member had also not received his credit on the movie, so I e-mailed Full Moon about it and asked that we get our certificate guaranteed credits on the next possible movie. I got a reply quickly, with an offer to put our names on the Killer Eye sequel that was to be released just one month later. And so there we are at the bottom of the list:

Released in 1999, the first Killer Eye movie told the story of a horny eye creature that enters our world from the eighth dimension and proceeds to cause trouble for a young mad scientist and his wife. As it was directed by David DeCoteau under the pseudonym Richard Chasen, it features his trademark of a whole lot eye candy in the way of scantily clad guys.

Directed by Full Moon head Charles Band, Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt both switches the gender on the scantily clad eye candy (aside from a voice actor, there are no males in the cast) and takes a Wes Craven's New Nightmare type of approach. In the world of Halloween Haunt, the first Killer Eye is just a movie and the lead character owns a replica of the eye creature, which is available through Full Moon's website.

The story follows nice/geeky girl Jenna (Erica Rhodes) who, with her mother out of town, has invited three friends - smart girl Rocky (Chelsea Leigh Edmundson), "too cool for school" lesbian pothead Catalina (Ariana Madix), and the orally fixated Kiana (Lauren Furs) - over to drink, smoke weed, and help her get her home set up for the haunted house that she and her mother run every October. After a while of this, the girls decide to take a break and watch The Killer Eye.

Something about the movie interacts with a voyeuristic crystal ball in the room and it zaps the replica into life and the dimension-jumping eye creature sets off to terrorize and horndog on our group of girls and a party crasher (Olivia Alexander).

It's a fun, goofy movie and the (easy-on-the-eyes) actresses give very entertaining performances.

I'm satisfied with how things worked out with my credit, I'm happy to have my name on this movie and actually enjoyed it more than Gingerdead Man 3 anyway. Thanks to the people behind the scenes at Full Moon for handling the situation well and fixing things quickly.

I'm only a few episodes into Breaking Bad, but it's a really good show. I've been meaning to watch it for a while now, and thanks to Netflix, I can finally make it happen without spending any extra money.

The show is based around Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has cancer and only a little time left to live. Desperate to make money for his family, Walter decides to put his knowledge to use and starts cooking crystal meth.

The show is gritty and doesn't back down from a touchy subject or situation. As I said, I'm very early on in its run, but it's quickly becoming the most interesting show that I have to watch now that I've completed my recap through LOST. Bryan Cranston is super entertaining and really stretches out from the only other role I remember him in, Hal on Malcolm in the Middle. I'm also equally entertained by the character of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a former student of White's who hasn't amounted to anything but a bumbling drug dealer. The team-up between the two has led to a lot of interesting plot twists so far and I'm eager to find out what happens next.

BURIED (2010)

Directed by Rodrigo Cortes
Starring Ryan Reynolds and Robert Paterson

Buried is the story of a U.S. truck driver in Iraq, Paul Conroy, who after being attacked by some Iraqis, finds himself buried alive inside a coffin with only a cellphone, glowstick, flashlight, and a lighter.

The entire film takes place in Paul's coffin, so to say that this movie is claustrophobic would be a bit of an understatement. I don't like how void of hope the film is, but I love it for what the filmmakers were able to pull off. Ryan Reynolds is very solid in the part, and is aided by a few strong voice performances as Paul's character only has communication with people on the other end of a telephone line. There is a neat addition with a video on a cell phone, but otherwise this is the only time we see someone besides Paul trapped inside the coffin.

Rodrigo Cortes does a great job directing the film and there is never a dull moment inside Paul's coffin. A lot of credit for this should be given to writer Chris Sparling for coming up with all of the different ways to keep the story moving. A couple of them were a little out there, and if you really want to pick away at the story, you could probably discredit a great deal of it. The key is to just go in knowing that you're watching a movie about a guy buried alive in a coffin in Iraq. I went with it and was really impressed with the world that the filmmakers were able to create here. It's really tense, full of emotion, and keeps you involved until the very end.